JOHNSON, MEGAN: In The Yellow That's You And Jesus!

Hola y'all!

What's up folks? It's been a pretty cool week, nothing too exciting but still cool. :)

Monday was a pretty chill pday (preparation day). With hurricane Sally coming to the eastern part of the mission, we were all on lockdown to within 20 minutes of our apartment. So we just got groceries at Walmart, cleaned our car (hadn't been washed since before Laura…) and called our families. Our lesson with Michael got moved to Tuesday so we did some Facebook finding to finish off the day.

On Tuesday for service we went to a member's house on base at Fort Polk and helped him clean his house since he was moving. And boy was that the cleanest house I have ever seen! And this is before we came to "clean" it! I aspire to have my future home be as clean as that one! Then we came home, I had a Spanish call with some other missionaries learning Spanish (it's really rough man!! My Spanish has disappeared :/ ) and made some cards for people we teach and members in the ward. Then we had our lesson with Michael! We got to know him better and read some of the Book of Mormon with him. He really connected with what it said about Enos, a prophet in the Book of Mormon. It was great! Then Sister Estes asked him if he wanted to be baptized (I was feeling the spirit but it also felt wrong…) and he said no...of the 2 other times I've invited someone to be baptized, they've never said no...I had no idea what to do! Sister Estes was stumped too! So I just invited him to keep reading the Book Mormon...he still wants to meet with us and had lots of good questions though (some too good that we didn't know how to answer, but we're gonna get our district leader to help us out answering them for our next lesson)!

Wednesday we received 2 referrals (when people request a missionary visit)! MIRACLE! We've actually been getting a crazy amount of referrals lately, it's just that none of them ever respond to us...but today both of them responded! But didn't continue responding to get appointments...still doing good though. After lunch we embarked to our apartment in DeRidder to grab some things for Zone Conference. When we got there we couldn't take the messiness of the apartment so we deep cleaned for a couple hours. Since the apartment complex hadn't boarded up our window yet, Sister Estes took a cardboard box and cut it up to tape to the window. Then we took the tarp and tacked it up outside the window for better protection. We vacuumed up glass, swept, mopped, cleaned all the dishes/containers of water from when we panicked about the hurricane but didn't have time to empty them before evacuating, etc. It was intense! But we finally started getting the smell of the forest out of the apartment...and then...the power went out...BUT it was a miracle because the dishwasher had just finished and we had cleaned everything we needed power for already! Then we left our nice clean apartment and headed back to Leesville to call it a day.

Thursday was ZONE CONFERENCE!! (Where a bunch of missionaries gather together for the day to hear from mission leaders about how we can become better missionaries) It was in Alexandria and was awesome. Everyone talked about finding joy/growing during our trials and becoming a more Christ-like missionary. President Amos is seriously HILARIOUS! He made this analogy about driving in a car and going through a yellow light that turns red. He said, in his Opelousas Louisiana born n raised Southern accent, that he'd rather us just stop when it turns yellow to stay in the clear because then "YOU GOOD" but that when we enter the intersection during the yellow light it's "all between you and Jesus"! If that light turns red...eek! Jajaja Basically he just wants us all to be cautious and just obey the standards in the missionary handbook...even classifying lawn mowers as power tools jajaja. Also they brought us all Raising Cane's for lunch! Yum! People in the South sure do love their Cane's man! Then we went to Pineville to go on exchanges (where you switch companions for 24 hours in order to improve as a missionary) with the STL's (Sister Training Leaders). It was strange being back at their apartment without 10 sisters being there with no power...it was nice…

Friday we did our exchanges! I was with Sister Teague and Sister Estes was with Sister Jacobs. We did our studies in the morning and then we made chocolate chip cookies to deliver to the people they are teaching in Pineville. Then we went to a lesson with a recent convert, Ms. Pauline. She was super nice and we read from the Book of Mormon and it really helped her understand more about how God answers prayers. It was awesome. That afternoon we got to join a zoom call touring the John Johnson home in Kirtland Ohio. It was really cool to see the house that Joseph Smith lived in for a while and where he received a bunch of revelation from God. For dinner we went to this fun Mexican/Caribbean restaurant and all got fajita quesadillas and shared a fried ice cream. It was fun. Then we made the long drive back to Leesville to be with our giant quad of 6 sisters...I don't know what that would be called...a sextuple??

On Saturday we had a mission wide zoom call with everyone to do a little training that Elder Bednar wanted our mission to do. It was cool. We ended up driving down to DeRidder to get some stuff and the power is still out and the window is still broken… Then we came back to Leesville to do weekly planning and called a million people to set up appointments for next week. We even called a referral from crisis cleanup who was open to the missionaries and talked with him for 30 minutes! His name is Mr. Tony and we are gonna go help clean up the rest of his yard on Tuesday (even though he doesn't think that women should work...we'll just have to show him that women can work extremely hard!). We even invited him to church (he didn't come because of his work schedule, BUT he said that next Sunday he would!)! Hopefully everything goes well with him next week! :)

Sunday we went to church in Rosepine! This was literally only my second time going to church in this ward and as a missionary in general. And guess what?! I gave a talk! And so did Sister Estes! The number of active members in the ward is apparently so small that they basically just switch off every week having members then missionaries speak...there were 31 people (a bunch of cute young families!) at church...but nevertheless I gave a talk! And it was ok. I was extremely nervous, but now it's over! And I'll probably have to give another one soon :'( Then we filmed a video of Brother Beardsley for Facebook, dropped off some cookies to Ms. Charlotte (who I've still literally never talked to other than over text because they called her while on exchanges) and came home to watch the Sunday live devotional on Facebook! The rest of the day we just studied, called some people from crisis cleanup, had my first missionary correlation meeting (meeting with ward leaders about the people we are teaching, members in need of assistance and what's going on in the ward) in this ward and took a walk. With tropical storm Beta approaching it actually got COLD outside. I repeat COLD in Louisiana!! 68 degrees!

Overall it's been a good week. Still not back in DeRidder and I'm pretty sure I know the Leesville area better than my own area...Things are moving slowly at the moment, but still going. Also next week is transfers so that's CRAZY! But I'm continuing to learn more and more about what it means to be a more Christ-like missionary or better yet a better disciple of Jesus Christ. I literally have SO much still to learn and to progress in, but I'm excited to keep learning and growing in the gospel because it's freaking awesome man! I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that Heavenly Father loves each and every one of you and that Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for every individual to ever walk the Earth. And I love sharing these truths with others!!

Have a blessed week!

Smile because God loves you and remember that I love, love, love y'all too!

Love,

Sister Johnson

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!!

1. Sister Estes made a make shift window out of cardboard and tape on the inside with a tarp held up by push pins on the outside.

2. Cute pic Elder Oswald got of me eating my salad at lunch during Zone conference! jajaja

3. Alexandria Zone COVID-19 safe pic